WEEK 13 - PRESENTATION PART 2

Tablet Technology

The group discussed the growth of tablet technology... One thing that dawned on me as they presented was their point on 'ease of use', especially with touch screen technology, the group mentioned a little bit on how kids, and I mean young kids, can start using the iPad with such ease and within seconds, it's almost baffling. Well I think this just speaks volume of the 'naturality' of such technology.

The group also posed a question to the class - do we wear watches? A bunch of us still do and the group  mentioned how we, humans, love multi-tasking objects, so we rely on our phones for the time, the weather, for setting an alarm, to remind us of deadlines and whatnot. Well I see the point that the group was trying to make, except most of us actually raised our hands! But then again, perhaps the whole function of a watch has changed. It has become an accessory. It is multi purpose now!

During the Q&A session, one of our classmate questioned if we were really going to replace PC with tablet technology in offices. I believe this appears to be the direction we are taking. Both my brother and dad's office replaced all desktop with laptops.. and perhaps they will slowly attempt to replace laptops with tablets. There is really no reason why we shouldn't, with advancing technology, tablets should be able to perform the same tasks that a PC does. I certainly look forward to the day where tablets are the norm. Besides, this 'disruptive' trend will offer opportunities for businesses - if they are able to manage the 'changes' in computer trends. A laptop maker doesn't always have to make laptops.

Beauty enablers through technology

This is the most interesting presentation I've seen in SMU, the transitions were funny, group members actually 'pushed' each other off the stage and free perfume samples were given out to people who asked their questions.   The project was basically on how technology 'enabled' beauty, which is an interesting topic and was probably a fun research topic. One would expect the group to dwell on surgical processes but they didn't!

Technology has enabled beauty - no one can argue that. When the group discussed the future of beauty, it dawned on me that the future direction appears to be more secretive, you pop a perfume pill (almost as though you smell perfect inside and out), you use dissolvable lenses (no need for contact lens or glasses - nobody has to know you're short sighted), you create a perfect baby (nobody has to know your true self as you can just put in genes and stuff you like). Perhaps the goal is to look beautiful naturally and no one needs to know you had those procedures.

Well, in any case, I felt that the group could have discussed the use of technology in creating creams and lotions. In recent times, I do believe none of us have been able to pass cosmetic halls in department stores without huge posters from luxury brands claiming that they have some special nano particles or timed 'particles' or whatever in their creams that promises to make you young and beautiful.

Social media and politics

This project focused on the use of social media in elections and politics... The advent of social media has changed the face of communication in all areas. The group discussed the impact of social media in elections campaign.

Well, although I had to vote, I wasn't entirely up to date on all of the campaign happenings. From what I know, social media helped to highlight every detail of the candidates involved.

Communications online - whether from the candidate himself or stemmed from discussions of netizens... will be dissected and pull apart and commented on and re-tweeted and whatnot. This only goes to show that activities online and on social platforms needs to be monitored closely. More firms are actually making sure their employees take a course on how to communicate effectively online.

Technology in terrorism

The group discussed the use of technology in terrorism and counter terrorism.. I thought the presentation was very clear and concise. The presentation offered insights into how technology is used to create terror and stop terror.

I believe communications between rioters in the London 2011 riots depended on BlackBerry messengers, FB, and twitter.. Obviously these technologies were not invented for the purpose of organizing riots. However, it was created to allow seamless/fuss free communication between people across the globe and etc, technology will often offer us opportunities and it is up to us to use that opportunity and we could use it for both good or bad. I suppose this is where technology assessment or change management (esp in the workplace) comes in to ensure that the 'changes' caused by technology are primary good.

And that marks the end of our class!

WEEK 12 - PRESENTATIONS PART 1

EcoTechnology

The first presentation was on EcoTechnology. (This was my initial choice of topic for my review paper!) The group identified Starbucks as a good corporate citizen and demonstrated a few examples of Starbuck's green initiatives. The group also identified other initiatives whereby corporations engage in responsible behaviour. I think this really points out the fact that you can do business with the environment in mind. It can't always be about economic sense over environment protection.

Photography

When I first saw that a group in our class was focusing their final group project on photography, I was pretty amazed. I had wondered what you could possibly discussed about a camera. After the presentation, I realised I took the camera for granted and saw it as a baby invention that didn't warrant much time/research.. I realised now, after browsing the site, that cameras are important documentation tools, which was a main purpose for the invention of this technology. Where would people be if cameras weren't invented. I bet this would be a good movie idea. We would have led our lives very differently and all history would have to be reliant on words. In any case, it was mentioned in the website that 3D camera technology will advance and become commercialized most quickly. A bit of googling showed that a tech blogger suggested that 3D camera would hardly be a requirement. Well, I'm pretty sure that's what a lot of people said about a smartphone.

E-commerce

Well, I was really happy to see some one doing a project on this topic as I think it is super interesting and I thought the research part would have been quite fun. I remember reading somewhere that people can BUY anything online and most have started to order everything online and nobody has to go anywhere to get anything.

Prof posed this same question to the class - What couldn't you buy online? I had a few answers.. they seemed to answer themselves though. The first thing that came to my mind was pets, but you can buy pets online, so what about houses, but online real estate websites are thriving. Then I realize you can buy a lot of things online, even products that required you to touch and feel them... Well the thing, businesses understand the drivers of growth of e-commerce and have since expanded their retail channels to the web. E-commerce is often complementary to brick and mortar stores.

It was also asked in class if we could ever get to that stage where we would buy everything online? Well, I sure hope not. But it could happen and I'm just saying.. a LOT of people would need to find a new hobby. I don't recall seeing no shops in futuristic movies though.

But, I digress, with the advent of augmented reality technology, this could be a real future, albeit a far future? I still see a lot of sense in brick and mortar shops. I believe e-commerce should be complementary to brick and mortar shops. I think the group answered this part pretty well with the few future innovations they suggested, like T-commerce where people can expand the advertisements shown and purchase the product they like. I think this is a wonderful example of how technology can complement commerce.

Food for the future

This is my group's project on Food For the Future. Our research attempts to evaluate current food production methods and examine what could we could expect in future food technologies.

OK we know all about food security issues, my group aims to investigate how we have been meeting people's needs and how we could do so responsibly. A few innovations were suggested, like the bubble gum meal, inspired by my favourite book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. When I was a child and reading this book, I honestly thought somewhere in America was a shop selling Willy Wonka's gum with a 100 flavours. The future of food seems to be concentrated on smart farming, smart foods and smart packaging. These 'smarts' help to ensure that food production is maximised responsibly.

I enjoyed doing this project. Research was fun and although it was extremely vexing to put the website together with a unreliable laptop (mine)... I am proud of it and am glad we could share our work with the class!

I would rate this session 8/10. I felt like we could have discussed a bit more on the various projects.. I look forward to the next session!

WEEK 11 - Technology Assesment and Forecasting

This week's session on assesment of technology signals an end to our TWC course. It is very appropriate that today's topic marks the end of our learning journey. After going through 9 TWC sessions, understanding the different forces shaping technological change and such, we were introduced to methods of assessing (new and current) technology.

We discussed the importance of doing a technology assessment, whether it meant  analyzing the impact of a current or emerging technology.  A lot of this week's topic is on preparation and creating a desirable future with strategic decisions...

It is obvious that we need to assess the impacts of technology. The exponential growth of technologies has created a need to udnerstand changes caused by technologies in order to reduce negative implications and react to surprises. For example, we were all happy to have discovered burning fossil fuels as an 'efficient' way of producing energy yet if we did a thorough technology assessment, we may have been more aware of the externalities caused. This is an simple example but it brings the point across. Technology assessment is important.

Organizations rely on technology assessment to understand when, what, and how much to invest in new technologies/current technologies/upcoming technologies in order to make strategic decisions.

It was also discussed in class how one can plan for the future. There are 2 ways, we can either look at existing realities or forecast a desired future and move in that direction. Personally, I don't think there's a better way, these two broad methods are catered to different problems and should be used together.

We were also introduced to the different methods of foresight and common uses of foresight output. One of the discussed methods was stakeholders mapping which involved getting views from the people involved. Understanding impacts of upcoming technology on stakeholders can help to improve on current technology or future technology decisions. Stakeholder analysis will provide insights from different perspectives so better or a more adjusted and well rounded decision can be made. A common foresight output would be used in policy recommendations to help in directing us to the desired future.

Reading 2, Perspectives of Futurology summarizes the entire topic for this session. The article highlights the importance of understanding the present to predict the future. As Voltaire said 'The present is pregnant with the future'. The present will shape the future. What we lack now will be created in the future. The key lies in anticipating emerging trends. This is very relevant for businssess as anticipating emerging trends helps them to make informed business decisions and avoid pitfall. Futurologists try to predict the future (not in a hocus pocus manner!) or what's best for the future and try to pave the way towards that!

Like Rongxuan mentioned, foresight does not aim to predict the futurew with certainty, it only seeks to reduce uncertainties.

This is the end of the TWC class and for the next two sessions, we will be shown the projects that our class groups have been working on and I'm looking forward to knowing what my class groups have been up to and their take on their chosen topic.

Reflection

My initial impression of TWC is that it involved something technical, probably the study  of computer technologies and its impact on the world. In a way, this is right, but we touched on more than the computer. Technology isn't just technical stuff , technology is knowledge, and the sessions on how different technologies have changed the world, what caused the change, how to mange the change has been really interesting...Writing a review paper on a specific innovation, from its beginning to its future direction really helped me to seriously consider how we have evolved (in my topic of discussion) and most importantly, the implications of this specific innovation. The individual assignment, although  daunting at times, allowed me to reflect on what are real changes caused by my innovation of choice.  I can't believe I'm saying this but I do like TWC, I just wish I read ALL the readings, so just a note to whoever who will be reading this when you're a freshie in TWC class, attempt to read all the readings as it helps you understand the topic better! You will hate reading because you it's really long and you see that there are 16 pages in the pdf file, just remember that 2 to 3 pages are basically cover pages, content page and a end page so do not be afraid.

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